Amateur Radio Ethics

Introduction

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) Monitoring Service (MS), is a global organisation, which was formed in Geneva in 1985. It comprises of three regional MS, with New Zealand being in region 3. In tern the regional MS are made up of the national societies' MS, such as the NZART MS, with national coordinators and other volunteers who assist in reporting, identifying and dealing with non-amateur interference on the amateur bands. This structure provides a mechanism through which ordinary radio amateurs in any country can identify and report harmful interference on the amateur bands and, where necessary, escalate things to the regional or international bodes and various regulatory authorities for concerted action.

The radio frequency spectrum is a limited, shared and precious resource that is constantly under pressure from multiple users, not all of whom respect the rights of radio amateurs. It is clearly in our interests to protect the amateur frequencies allocated for our use. With the increasing demands for spectrum space and tendency of some administrations to ignore their responsibilities under the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) convention, the amateur service must maintain a strong and effective MS if it is to retain its frequency allocations. It is vital that we continue to present factual, authoritative information about intruders to the appropriate authorities, and proactively defend our rights. The cooperative, global nature of the IARU MS provides us with a powerful voice.

The purpose of the NZART Monitoring Service

Monitor those frequencies allocated exclusively to the Amateur Radio Service and Log (for statistical purpose; Identify (where possible) and take measures to have the removal of all Non-Amateur signals detected in the amateur bands. However, even the primary users or secondary users have to abide by their licensing conditions i.e. non-interference with other services.

We attempt to listen as much as we can on the bands, receive intruder reports via various sources including e-mail reflectors, directly and follow up by verifying the details or conducting investigations with the assistance of other radio amateurs or Short Wave Listeners.

We attempt to identify the language used by non-amateur radio intruders, by receiving or taking audio samples and passing these on to others whose language skills are better than ours.

Every month the NZART Monitoring Service Coordinator puts together a monthly statistical report collating all the voluntary observers' contributions into an agreed report (spreadsheet). This report is passed to the region 3 MS Coordinator, who collates all the regional reports and produces a monthly report, which is posted on the following web site:http://www.iaru-r3.org/ms/r3msnl.htm

The MS Co-ordinators collate the required information and verify its authenticity before submitting an intruder report to the IARUM MS Co-ordinator for Region 3 (currently Peter - VK3MV). He then collates the information and verifies the information received from other Region 3 reports before making a formal submission to the responsible Telecommunication Authority (TA) as a formal complaint. The procedure used by the Wireless Institute of Australia is:http://www.wia.org.au/members/intruder/about/

We also provide quarterly reports to the NZART council to ensure they are kept up to date.

We also receive reports from various sources either directly from New Zealand and overseas Amateur Radio Operators, Short Wave Listeners, who assist us by logging any stations or interfering signals intruding into our allocated segments.

However, in order to save the RSM group a great deal of time and effort in terms of conducting an investigation, the NZART MS Co-ordinators collate the required information and verify its authenticity before submitting it. We are then prepared to answer any questions the RSM Inspector or Manager may ask with respect to our submission. This approach has worked very successfully within New Zealand.

What we are up Against

Intruders

An intruder is any non-amateur radio transmission in the exclusive amateur bands. Note that not all amateur bands are exclusively allocated to us: we have access to some on a primary or secondary basis alongside other users with mutual non-interference obligations, and the allocations vary globally. Some intruders are unlicensed pirates. Some administrations claim the right to use any frequency they like including the amateur bands - some (such as North Korea) are non members of the ITU, while a few casually ignore certain ITU regulations at their convenience. Some do not even appreciate that they are causing harmful interference by spurious or harmonic radiation, and that is where the MS can help by bringing the problem to their notice.

Harmful Interference

Harmful interference is that which seriously degrades obstructs or repeatedly interrupts a radiocommunication service, such as the Amateur Service, operating in accordance with the ITU Radio Regulations. Harmful interference is classed as either out-of-band or spurious emissions:

Out-of-band emissions are emissions on a frequency or frequencies which are outside the necessary bandwidth, which result from the modulation process. Their choice of frequency is normally deliberate and intentional;

Spurious emissions are emissions outside the necessary bandwidth, the level of which may be reduced without affecting the corresponding transmission of information. Spurious emissions include harmonics, parasitics, intermodulation products ("intermod") and frequency conversion products. These are normally accidental or unintentional transmissions. Whether or not they fall within permitted technical limits (e.g. harmonics so many decibels down from the fundamental), they may still interfere with amateur transmissions.

What You Can do to Help

The most direct way for ZL amateurs and SWLs to report amateur band intruders is by email (our contact details are given below). When reporting, please provide as much information as possible to help us characterise the intruder, namely;

The spot frequency or frequency range over which interference was caused, as accurately as you can;

The date and time or time period in which it occurred, in UTC please;

The nature of the interfering signal, ideally stating the mode or type of emission using the official designations but if not some indication such as Over The Horizon Radar (OTHR), Coastal Ocean Dynamics Applications Radar (CODAR), USB/LSB, AM, FM or digital modes (note: to help you identify obscure signals, there are several audio samples on the NZART MS Web page at:nzart/ms/

plus links to additional helpful Web resources elsewhere);

Any station call sign or identification transmitted by the intruder (hint: listen out for jingles and station IDs transmitted at the top of the hour by most commercial broadcasters);

Other helpful remarks such as any traffic or text transmitted, the length of transmissions or how often the transmissions have been heard, type of music or background noises, languages spoken, peak direction (azimuth) from your Maidenhead locator or town, approximate signal strength etc.;

If you have the opportunity, please also attach an audio sample as an MP3 or WAV file, and/or an audio spectrum "waterfall" image: these provide invaluable supporting evidence.

Please report intruders as soon as possible after you log them, using email if possible as that allows us to act quickly. You can email the NZART MS co-ordinator or deputy directly, or use the NZART or send a message to one of the general ZL amateur email reflectors (such as KiwiDX or ZLhams) but it is better to submit reports to the email reflector set up for this specific purpose, namelyIntruderWatch@GoogleGroups.com

However, in order to save the RSM group a great deal of time and effort in terms of conducting an investigation, the NZART MS Co-ordinators collate the required information and verify its authenticity before submitting it. We are then prepared to answer any questions the RSM Inspector or Manager may ask with respect to our submission. This approach has worked very successfully within New Zealand.

Reporting International Intruders to the IARUMS Region 3 Co-coordinator

The MS Co-ordinators collate the required information and verify its authenticity before submission an intruder report to the IARUM MS Co-ordinator for Region 3 (Peter - VK3MV). He then collates the information and verifies the information received from other Region 3 reports before making a formal submission to the responsible Telecommunication Authority (TA) as a formal complaint. The procedure used by the Wireless Institute of Australia is:http://www.wia.org.au/members/intruder/about/

Details on how to contact the IARUMS R3 Regional MS Coordinator are available via the NZART Monitoring Service web links:nzart/ms/

Your Successes

Tiger

Over the Horizon Radar within New Zealand

January - February 2010

NZART has recently had a little success, with the assistance of the Radio Spectrum Management to request that a certain Over The Horizon Radar (OTHR) system within our country actually desist from interfering within the 30 Metre band. You can find out more about this particular system, which works in partnership with a similar system on Bruny Island, Tasmania. However through correspondence via the IARU Region 3 MS Co-ordinator the owner of the Bruny Island system agreed to turn off the system over the 2009 festive season. Both Unwin and Bruny Island systems have been re-programmed by their respective controllers to adhere with their specific licensing conditions i.e. no interference with other services including Amateur Radio.

160 Metres

160Metres AM Intruder

May - June 2010

A persistent broadcast intruder on top band is a good illustration of the teamwork and patient analysis that goes into locating and hopefully resolving intrusions. An AM signal on 1908 kHz was first noted by Bill ZL3NB in Christchurch some months ago. When Gary ZL2iFB recently put up a new top band antenna, he reported an AM intruder on the same frequency via IntruderWatch, transmitting what appears to be a mixture of two different New Zealand broadcast programmes. Over successive evenings, additional reports and information accumulated, first identifying the two stations concerned through a combination of their rather muffled and sporadic on-air announcements plus using a second receiver to scan the medium wave broadcast band to find the culprits. Both broadcasters use a number of transmitting sites on different frequencies and it might yet be possible to pin-point the specific transmitting sites concerned since they transmit regional advertising breaks. In the meantime however, Brett ex-VR2BG calculated that a particular mixing product at the Christchurch transmitting site would put both signals on 1908 kHz. We confirmed the details, gathered the necessary evidence and reported the intrusion to the station engineer responsibility, who solved the problem successfully.

2011 Reports From IARUMS Coordinators

Letter to my Neighbour About Interference - Template

The January & February Break-In will have a letter based on a suggestion from Rob K3RB.

It is a letter, whereby the Radio Amateur writes to his neighbour rather than the neighbour having to write to the authorities etc.

The proposed template is available from the Page Links Menu. There is a link to download a copy, Link to Neighbour's Letter and a link to have a look at a copy, Letter to my neighbour.

Rob's permission has been obtained to use the letter and we believe it would have beneficial outcomes to radio amateurs within New Zealand and might encourage more participation or even a little understanding from the neighbours.

References

Signal Types

A short sound bite of various intruder types signals may be heard by selecting the appropriate button below. These are a few samples of some of the many strange sounds to be found, from time to time, in the amateur bands.

My Growing Collection of Unusual Radio Noises...W2SJW

Site Dedicated to The Analysis and Identification of HF Digital Modes

PLEASE NOTE: You have to e-mail the Webmaster of this site, WWW.SIGNALS.TAUNUS.DE to gain access. The NZ Monitoring Service coordinator recommends this excellent site. The instructions of what to do is below:

ERROR 403 - ACCESS DENIED!

Unfortunately your request could not be fulfilled at this time, This can have a variety of reasons

Your IP-Address belongs to an IP-range frequently used by "spammers"~ and 'bad bots"

Your IP-address uses forged PTR-record

Your IP has been blacklisted due to site ripping/attempted site ripping NOTE: the use of offline browsing tools like "DISCo Pump", "Download Master", "FlashGet", "HTTrack", "Teleport", "WebCopier", "Wget" etc. will result in a permanent ban!

Your client uses an inadequate identification string

You are entering the site via an unwanted referrer

You are entering the site using a blocked proxy server

If none of the above mentioned criteria apply and you feel you are being blocked by accident, please feel free to send me an e-mal using the subject "ERROR 403" and I will investigate further

(Remember to use ONLY that specific subject line in order to make sure your e-mail passes my spam filter! )

Additionally, please remember to include the following information with your request

Date and time in UTC/GMT when you tried to access the site (local time is useless!)

External IP~range or the exact IP your ISP assigned to you while trying to access the site

Please note that any requests to access the website that do not contain the above mentioned into, will be ignored

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